This averages to 27 downloads every second or around 250 download every 10-11 seconds. Internet Explorer 9 is the latest browser from Microsoft for Windows 7 and Windows Vista which includes several new and exciting features such as in-built Do not track options, site lists .

Overall IE9 has been downloaded over 40 million times in the past year. The record downloads for the final version of IE9 was more than double the downloads for IE9 beta and 4 times that of IE9 RC.

Internet Explorer 9 brings about a world of changes to the browser, making it more compact and adding in lots of new and exciting features to it. However, IE9 provides users with a web install and you will have to download multiple copies of the browser if you want to install it on different PCs.

If you don’t want to do that, you can download the full install links through the direct downloads for IE9 below.

According to a Mozilla posting on Google Groups, Firefox 4 will be made available to general public on March 22 or thereof. The date has been confirmed by both the IT and marketing team at Mozilla.

All,

Firefox 4 RC1 has received a very warm welcome; it’s time to make a decision to ship. As of now, there are no known issues that would stop us from shipping RC1 as final. At the conclusion of our regular 11:30AM triage session on Wednesday, March 16th, release drivers will decide whether to ship RC1 as Firefox 4.

March 22nd is the day we would ship. Both IT and Marketing have indicated that March 22nd is an acceptable final launch date. If at any time we discover issues that would block final release, we would issue an RC2 as soon as possible, reset the ship date, and communicate to everyone.

All my best,

Damon

The Firefox 4 RC1 will be frozen and released as the final version of Firefox 4, so users who are already using the RC will not see any changes. This is definitely good news for Mozilla, because Firefox 4 has been delayed numerous times and the competition has heated up with the launch of Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome 10 and Opera 11.

Looks like Google is rebranding the logo for Google Chrome to look a little bit different in the latest development build. As you can see from the screenshot below which is from the latest development version, Chrome sports a new logo as compare to earlier versions.

The screenshot below is from an earlier version of Google Chrome

The newer logo is more flatter than the earlier one and does not have any spaces between the different colors and the ball in the middle. The grey delimiter has been replaced except for a circle around the blue ball.

I am not sure when this design change came through, but I would definitely prefer to see the older logo. What do you think? Which Chrome logo do you like among these two?

Yes, WOT, not what. It stands for Web Of Trust. WOT is an addon for Firefox, Chrome, Opera and IE. Once installed, it can scan links in search engine results and web email. When it finds dangerous links, it lets you know with red and yellow symbols, as shown in this video below.

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As you can see, it’s not safe to search for screensavers. That is, it’s not safe unless you are using WOT or a service like it. You’ll see similar results in your online email, such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail. I’d say it’s a must have addon for those new to the internet.

Today, I received a notice from WOT telling about the addition of social networking sites to their link scanning. What does this mean? Take a look at Facebook with the new WOT addon for Firefox.

Update: Some sections of this article have been modified from their original form

The Release Candidate for Firefox 4 has been out for a few days now and I decided to put it through the paces. Though there wouldn’t me much to write about since my Firefox 4 Beta review, there are definitely some speed tests and other things I have done to compare it with other offerings available today.

This is definitely good because users will have a unified experience across multiple browsers. Firefox 4 has combined all the menu items into a single menu item. However, individual menu items are available when you press the Alt key.

Firefox 4 though hasn’t gotten rid of the search box and continues to use it for dedicated searches. However, you can still use the address bar to perform searches.

More New Features

Other than these, Firefox 4 also has a new tab manager which allows you to manage open tabs. A new add-on manager, a new feature where you can search the address bar and switch to an open tab and more Windows 7 integration. I had covered all of these in my earlier Firefox 4 review so I would not want to repeat them again.

Firefox 4 RC Benchmark – How it Stacks Up?

Coming to my favorite part in this review, I ran a couple of benchmarks on Firefox 4 RC to understand how it stacked up against the several other browsers I use. These benchmarks were run on a hot instance of all the included browsers (the browsers were already open once before running the tests).

Sadly, the tests did not backup Firefox 4 here. Firefox 4 was rated the second lowest in the Peacemaker tests after Safari of course. Way below Internet Explorer 9. By the way that Safari 4.0.4 is actually Google Chrome 12, somehow it identifies it wrong. I have made sure to make it apparent in the test results image too.

The winner of course was Opera 11.10 which is still in alpha stage and Google Chrome 12 which will be released soon. It goes to show where Mozilla’s efforts are.

Firefox 3 RC fared worse in their Acid3 tests than the beta versions. This was not unexpected, but I have hardly seen any browser go higher that this.

Of course, Firefox 4 might have higher ratings elsewhere, but this is definitely not something I would want to see Firefox 4 in the ratings. Alas, we can’t get everything we want can we?

Summarizing

Firefox 4 is a huge leap for Mozilla, it makes a lot of UI changes which will be unacceptable to many users so you can expect a lot of backlash when this goes live However, it is a move in the right direction and will pay off in the end.

However, there are quite a few things which lack in Firefox 4 and were supposed to be in Firefox 3.5. Do feel free to talk about your thoughts out here, in fact I would be very appreciative if you could share your benchmarks of different browsers too.

Redundant Section

This part of the article is redundant and it might have been a bug in my profile, please disregard it. You can click here to see this section.

Missing Google

Update: This might not happen in all installations. As mentioned in the comments below, there seems to a problem here. Restoring the search engines brought back the Google option, however, I certainly did not remove it from the list.

Mozilla has cancelled it’s contract with Google and are now have a new contract with Bing. Though that is a business decision, Google has completely been removed from Firefox 4 and users have to add it manually.

I definitely don’t like this approach and would have loved if Firefox provided me with a way to choose my default search engine. The Google Desktop you see above was automatically added because I have the software installed on my PC.

Users will have to visit the Mozilla website to add additional search engines to this list. However, don’t expect to find the Google search engine easily, it’s buried way down in their listings.

What’s Missing?

The ability to install extensions and themes without restarting is a sore point for me right now. I really don’t want to install an extension and then be able to use it only after I close all of the 12 tabs I have open.

I would have seriously wanted to see that feature in Firefox 4, most (read all) browsers support it right now and I find it hard to devour the fact that Mozilla hasn’t done it yet. Maybe I can expect it in Firefox 6 or so.

Other than that I don’t have any real big complaints, but, that does not mean that I will switch from Google Chrome to Firefox. Why? Memory consumption is still an issue with Firefox 4 and it definitely needs to be addressed soon rather than later.

Update: Firefox 4 does support extensions which can be installed without restarting, however, the number of extensions is very low. Please read this page for more information. Thanks Tyler.

The latest version has been bumped to 12.0.701.0 whereas the current development build is at version 11.0.696.3. I haven’t seen any new changes to the user interface or settings in this build, but I do know that there are some really big changes in them.

I will continue looking at what changes have been pushed to this build and will update this post with more information about them. One thing I am happy though is that couple of bugs I had reported have been fixed in this build.

History repeated itself, once again, on the first day of pwn2own, an annual hacking competition where hackers try to break through the defense of modern browsers and operating systems. Safari and Internet Explorer were once again successfully exploited by hackers, while Chrome remained unchallenged and undefeated.

Safari, which was the first browser to be challenged, fell within five seconds. The French security firm VUPEN managed to both execute arbitrary code (launch the Calculator), and bypass sandbox protection (write file on the hard disk). The technique used by VUPEN required development of tools from the scratch and took about three weeks to put together. VUPEN’s success is notable because shortly before the contest began, Apple patched as many as 62 vulnerabilities in a massive security update.

Next up was Internet Explorer, which met a similar fate at the hands of Stephen Fewer. Fewer exploited three separate vulnerabilities to execute Calculator and write a file to the disk. Unlike Apple, Microsoft hadn’t even bothered to issue any security updates last week.

The final browser that was supposed to be tested today was Chrome. However, the single contestant who had signed up to take a crack at Chrome didn’t turn up. So Chrome finished the day unchallenged and undefeated. Like Apple, Google had also released a major security update to Chrome in which at least 24 vulnerabilities were patched. It’s likely that the contestant dropped out because the zero-day vulnerability he planned on using was fixed by Google.

Firefox is slated to be challenged tomorrow. Should it fall, Google Chrome will be the last browser standing for the third consecutive year. Opera is not included in the competition as the organisers are of the opinion that its current user base of 53 million is not large enough.

YSlow along with Google Page Speed provide a good way to find out how your website is loading and which components are slowing it down. In addition to that, it also provides several suggestions to make your website load better.

YSlow for Google Chrome works similarly to the Firefox add-on and displays users with performance ratings and grades for a website. Most of the interface will be familiar to regular users, however, there are some new features in YSlow for Chrome which includes the ability to compare YSlow results for multiple results. Some of the other feature highlights include:

User experience consistent with YSlow for Firefox.

Added the ability to detect post onload components, including for pages that prevent itself from being embedded and/or iframed. (experimental)

Support for 3 main rulesets: Default YSlow V2, Classic V1, and Small Site or Blog as well as the ability to create new ones based on these 3.

Last month Google released the beta version of Google Chrome 10 to the public. Chrome 10 used the new V8 engine which made it 2 times faster than the previous version. In addition to that, it also included a new settings page which is similar to what is found on a Cr-48 Netbook.

Today, Google has released Google Chrome 10 to the stable channel, making the update available to everyone. Google Chrome 10 also supports password sync, so you can sync your passwords and access it on any computer. In addition to that you can also set a secret passphrase for the sync to secure your synced data. Google Chrome 10 also comes integrated with the latest Flash player, so you will be using Flash 10.2.

If you are using the stable update, this new version should automatically be pushed to you shortly. You can also go to Settings -> About and check for updates. Alternatively, you can download Google Chrome 10 from http://www.google.com/chrome.

So go ahead and experience the latest and greatest browser from Google. It’s fast and you won’t be disappointed.